Turkmenistan's government sought and received approval from the Saudi Arabian authorities for just 650 Muslims to travel on the haj pilgrimage to Mecca in October, a Saudi consular official told Forum 18 News Service from the capital Ashgabad. Although an increase on the usual 188 in the state-sponsored group, this is just under a seventh of the haj quota allocated by the Saudi authorities. "Turkmenistan is one of the governments not doing all it can to help pilgrims," the Saudi official noted. "We're trying to help them." Muslims in one of the country's six administrative divisions have to wait up to eleven years to reach the top of the haj waiting list, an official of Balkan Region Religious Affairs office told Forum 18. He said that 21 pilgrims from his Region are due to be selected soon to travel this year, the same number as in 2013. He claimed that Shia Muslims are not obstructed from joining the haj. The Turkmen government has never explained why it severely restricts haj numbers.

Less than seven weeks after he had imprisoned a Jehovah's Witness on what his fellow believers insist were fabricated charges, Judge Gaigysyz Orazmuradov of Dashoguz City Court in northern Turkmenistan sentenced another Jehovah's Witness. 33-year-old Bibi Rahmanova was given a four-year prison sentence for assaulting a police officer and two train station employees, charges she vigorously denied. "This decision is particularly shocking considering that Bibi is the mother of a four-year-old boy and was clearly the victim of police abuse," Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. Rahmanova and her husband were both charged after they were detained for collecting religious literature from the train station. Secret police, ordinary police and a state religious affairs official detained them. Neither the religious affairs official Hudainazar Artykov nor Judge Orazmuradov would discuss the case with Forum 18. Meanwhile, Jehovah's Witness Merdan Amanov became the sixth known imprisoned conscientious objector when given a one-year sentence in July.

For the third time in three years, a Jehovah's Witness in Turkmenistan has been given a four-year jail term on fabricated criminal charges for exercising his freedom of religion or belief. The latest victim is 42-year-old prisoner of conscience Bahram Shamuradov, sentenced on 2 July in the northern city of Dashoguz. Judge Gaigysyz Orazmuradov refused to tell Forum 18 News Service why he convicted with an apparent absence of verifiable evidence, claiming "it was all done in accordance with the law". In another case, fabricated charges of hooliganism have been lodged against Jehovah's Witness husband and wife Vepa Tuvakov and Bibi Rahmanova who were beaten by police and detained along with their four-year old son. If convicted they could each be jailed for up to five years. Also beaten in police custody in early July was another local Jehovah's Witness Mansur Masharipov. He was injected against his will with an unknown substance which caused partial paralysis, vomiting, fever and headaches. An urgent appeal about all these cases has been made to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

A 23-year-old Jehovah's Witness Pavel Paymov became the seventh current known imprisoned conscientious objector when he was given a one-year prison term in Turkmenistan's capital Ashgabad on 26 February. He is believed still to be held at the pre-trial detention prison at Yashlyk, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. He is likely to be transferred to the labour camp at Seydi where imprisoned conscientious objectors generally are held. Five more conscientious objectors are serving suspended sentences. Fifteen current and former conscientious objector prisoners have lodged complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Committee over their imprisonment and maltreatment, including brutal beatings.

Police and MSS secret police in Dashoguz in Turkmenistan have raided members of Light of the East Church, Forum 18 News Service has learned. Two homes of church members were raided and religious literature including personal Bibles were seized. One church member was threatened with a 15-day jail term and deportation, even though he is a Turkmen citizen. During one raid, on a rehearsal of songs for the following Sunday's meeting for worship, officials stated that "singing about God here is banned". The Church was also threatened that it might lose its state registration, thus making it illegal. A state religious affairs official who is also an imam told the church's Pastor Yuri Rozmetov that the Christian faith "is wrong" and pressured him to become a Muslim. Meanwhile, the level of fines to punish individuals and communities for exercising their freedom of religion or belief has been increased. And the state continues to limit the total number of Muslims allowed to take part in the annual haj pilgrimage to 188 people including MSS secret police. Officials have refused to discuss the cases with Forum 18.

Suhrab Rahmanberdiyyev has become the 11th known prisoner of conscience jailed for exercising their freedom of religion or belief in Turkmenistan, Forum 18 News Service notes. He became the ninth known jailed conscientious objector to military service when he was given an 18-month prison term on 18 November. The 18 year old was also beaten while in custody, and relatives did not know that the trial was taking place and so were unable to attend. Known freedom of religion or belief prisoners of conscience are nine Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors and a Protestant and a Jehovah's Witness jailed for other freedom of religion or belief-related reasons. At least two of the prisoners of conscience - Zafar Abdullaev and Atamurat Suvkhanov – were obstructed from being included in a December prisoner amnesty. A labour camp official told Abdullaev he had to admit to violating prison regulations so as not to be on the amnesty list. "The official threatened that if Zafar didn't do this himself, he would find a way to set this up", Forum 18 was told. Officials have refused to discuss the cases with Forum 18.

Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev, a former religious prisoner of conscience, many of his relatives and many of his unregistered Protestant congregation have been summoned for interrogation, threats and insults since 15 September. One police officer threatened to "tear off" the head of one of his relatives if she adopted "their faith", he told Forum 18 News Service from Mary. "Who is threatening him? We simply need to know more about him," an officer of Mary police Criminal Investigation Department claimed to Forum 18. No one at Turkmenistan's Foreign Ministry could explain why it had told the United Nations Human Rights Council in follow-up to the UPR review that "no laws" restrict the rights of unregistered religious communities when wide-ranging new Administrative Code punishments have just been adopted. "Our Ambassador to the UN, Esen Aydogdyev, will be answering all these questions at the Human Rights Council session in Geneva on 18 to 20 September," one Foreign Ministry official told Forum 18 and put the phone down.

Yet again a court in Turkmenistan has imprisoned a young man whose conscience will not allow him to conduct the compulsory military service. Amirlan Tolkachev, who is 20, was given an 18-month prison term in Turkmenabad on 10 July, Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service. He is one of nine current known imprisoned conscientious objectors, all of them Jehovah's Witnesses. Fifteen sentenced conscientious objectors – many of them still in prison - have lodged complaints to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, three of them today (29 August). Meanwhile, police raided a summer children's camp run by the Baptist church in the town of Mary. Fifteen police plus health and other officials questioned the children, took food samples and ordered the camp closed. Two fines were then handed down. The man who answered the phone of Mary's police chief refused to discuss why the camp had been raided and shut down. "Who are you?" he kept asking Forum 18.

Turkmenistan continues to try to isolate religious communities from their fellow-believers elsewhere, Forum 18 News Service notes. In early 2013, after a police raid on a meeting of a religious community, a Central Asian foreigner present was deported. Their holy book was also confiscated. Also, after a local religious community had gained the required permission of the state Gengesh for Religious Affairs, the Foreign Ministry refused to grant a visa to the foreign national the local community wanted to invite. The religious communities concerned wish to remain unnamed, for fear of state reprisals. Government officials have rejected all criticism of the country's violations of freedom of religion or belief during the United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Turkmenistan. Officials would not explain to Forum 18 why the government is still only "currently analysing" September 2008 recommendations by Asma Jahangir, the then UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Two members of a Protestant community in a village in the eastern Lebap Region were fined more than two months' average local wages after police were informed that a church member was reading Christian literature at work, Protestants complained to Forum 18 News Service. State religious affairs officials (including state-appointed imams) and police raided several local Christians' homes, confiscating Bibles and other literature. "They said the Bible was printed in Kiev in Ukraine, and therefore reading it was banned," Protestants told Forum 18. The Judge told one of the fined church members: "If you want to know about God, read the Koran." In another village of Lebap Region, local elders wrote to Turkmenistan's President complaining that a Protestant leader is "very dangerous to society". Local Protestants have faced public vilification at residents' meetings. State religious affairs officials refused to comment.